Cyberbullying: Seattle Public School’s Online Lessons

February 16th, 2009 By: Diane Trim in Articles, School Climate, Teachers' Corner

Sean is a bright, shy boy who isn’t very good at sports, but he excels at online games. While playing Halo against other online players, someone starts sending Sean comments using bad language and threats. This goes on for weeks, every time Sean logs into the game. He doesn’t know it, but four boys in his school found out his game tag and are targeting him with abusive threats.
– “The Effects of Cyberbullying,” an activity from Seattle Public School’s Middle School Cyberbullying Curriculum

Our students are digital natives, a term that means that teens look at the Internet, cell phones, instant messaging, and text messaging as a part of their normal social lives. Adults are digital immigrants who use technology as a tool to supplement our lives. For students, asking them to turn off the communications technology is like asking them to eat steak without a knife and fork. Sure, the kids could eat the steak, but it’s messy and awkward without the right tools. Our students are so used to their digital tools that face-to-face communication and online communication blend seamlessly.

That seamless blend of the live and the virtual makes cyberbullying, bullying that takes place through a digital medium, a more complex problem to solve than just turning off the cell phone or logging off the computer. Thirty percent of our students have experienced cyberbullying, the effects of which extend beyond the online universe and into their offline world – including the classroom.

Seattle Public Schools’ Cyberbullying Response. In 2007 the Washington State legislature passed a cyberbullying and anti-harassment law that required school districts to have strong policies that prohibit the bullying and intimidation of any student.

In response to Washington State law and Seattle School Board Policy, the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) developed a bullying prevention program. With funding from the Qwest Foundation, SPS’s Senior Project Consultant Mike Donlin headed up the district’s project, which includes teacher-friendly online cyberbullying prevention units for middle school teachers. The teaching guides, student activities, teacher resources, and parent information can be found here: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/prevention/cbms.html

The nine free, downloadable units are designed to keep kids safe, Donlin said. “Cyberbullying occurs under the table. It’s digital natives bullying one another in the land of the natives – even high-tech adults don’t go there.”

Cyberbullying in the Middle School. Cyberbullying researchers Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin (Bullying beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying, 2009) found that between sixth and seventh grades, incidences of cyberbullying make a significant increase.

That’s one of the reasons the SPS cyberbullying curriculum focuses on middle school. “It seems it’s an age for young people where they begin to experiment with things,” Donlin said. The curriculum can be scaled up or down, he said, but the team who wrote the curriculum felt that focusing on the age where cyberbullying becomes a problem would be the best idea.

The Cyberbullying Curriculum. The Seattle cyberbullying curriculum includes nine teachers manuals, which cover units like Respect and Responsibility, Cyberbullying: Impacts and Consequences, What to do if You Are Being Cyberbullied, What to Do If You’re a Cyberbully, and Standing Up for Others.

Donlin’s team made sure that each unit connected with Washington State Education Standards and could be used in existing technology, health, and English/language arts units or as stand-alone units. The team incorporated student writing activities and home-school-classroom communications into the units as well as teacher evaluation/feedback forms to help the team continually improve and update the unit as technology use changes.

The teacher-designed units are created so teachers who aren’t tech-savvy can be as successful as digital native teachers. It’s important that all teachers, no matter their technology comfort level, connect with students about their technology use, Donlin said.

“This is the twenty-first century,” he said. “We’re losing kids because we’re not connecting with them and we have to make sure they’re safe.”

Schools Need to Support Cyberbullying Victims. “Kids carry around with them and have access to more technology than even a decade ago,” Donlin said. It’s where they live, what they do, how they’re connected. Their biggest fear is: if I tell an adult about a cyberbullying problem, I’m going to lose my stuff, my access”

Hinduja and Patchin write that 60 percent of cyberbullying victims don’t tell and adult about their experiences. They found that victims are afraid adults will take away their computer or cell phone access or that a caring adult won’t know how to help. At school, teachers and administrators are reluctant to intervene with cyberbullying incidents that happen away from school.

“What I hear from school administrators is that we can’t do anything about cyberbullying because it’s out of school,” Donlin said. “But you don’t know that for sure. It can start in school, come into school, and go back out.”

Donlin said that 90 – 95 percent of secondary school students carry a cell phone. “It’s ubiquitous, it’s 24/7,” he said. “Adults don’t see the technology abuse happening, but it’s part of our job to keep the kids safe.”
How to Support a Cyberbullying Victim. The SPS cyberbullying curriculum includes materials that offer advice for students when they witness a cyberbullying incident. Bystanders have a powerful role to play in cyberbullying – bystanders can support the bully’s actions just by saying nothing. However, it’s hard for students to stand up against a bully because they are uncomfortable and anxious about becoming the next target.

How to Support a Cyberbullying Victim. The SPS cyberbullying curriculum’s student handout “The Role of Bystanders in Cyberbullying” explains that, “When bystanders stand up for a target, it is one of the most effective means of stopping bullying. Support from bystanders gives the target confidence. It shows the bully that the target has friends who care, and that what the bully is doing is not cool.”

Sometimes, a cyberbullying victim will approach a trusted adult for help. Teachers, even digital immigrant teachers, can assist the victim, Donlin said. “Talk to the kid, start a conversation,” he said. “If you don’t know the questions to ask, say ‘Show me’ or ‘Tell me.’”

To stop the cyberbully, Donlin recommends that teachers and administrators:

• Provide a safe place in school for the victim to go
• Take screenshots of the cyberbully’s work and save the screenshots
• Make sure parents are involved
• Make sure adults get the message to the abuser to stop
• Bring evidence to the school officials’ attention – the school needs to be actively involved in stopping the cyberbully
• Get the police involved, if need be
• Save the evidence, save the URLs, download copies to give to the police

“It’s important for the kid to have someone to talk to, an adult who will listen and not over-react,” Donlin said. “That’s the number one thing.”

You are invited to download the Seattle Public Schools’ cyberbullying curriculum. Visit http://www.seattleschools.org/area/prevention/cbms.html for the free teaching resources.

Tags: bullying, cyberbullying